Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
My brother has two children now, so I've been playing aunt Renee. They're two and four. It's chaos. Moms out there, kudos to you. The cool thing about being an aunt is like, I can leave. No offense to my big brother Drew, but that is slavery. I dare you to take a shower. You can't do anything unless they let you. It's a dictatorship. They're little dictators in their crib.
James Wilkie is so conscious of the time we spend together. I try to be home to tuck him in at least four nights a week, and if I'm not, he's not letting me get away with anything. The other night I was sitting with him on the steps before Matthew and I went out to the theater, and he looked at me and said, `Mama, this has got to stop. Go upstairs and take that dress off.'
The only thing we can depend on in life is that everything changes. The seasons, our partners, what we want and need. We hold hands with out high school friends and swear to never lose touch, and then we do.Change is the only constant. Your ability to navigate and tolerate change and its painful uncomfortableness directly correlates to your happiness and general well-being.
I don't think I want to play title roles. I don't want to be the face on the poster. I don't want that pressure of having the success riding on my shoulders. I just want to play the most interesting parts. I actually think it's incredibly rare to get an interesting female character that is the lead in a film. Usually the character parts are so much more interesting to play.
Think bigger than society lets you think. And find mentors. My life is filled with people who knew me when I was 19 and had a horrible South African accent and bleach-blond hair and who believed in me in a way that was brutal. They were just unbelievable and consistent and smart. Find mentors who, every time you're with them, you're being schooled. Just absolutely schooled.
I do have a sense of fear every day going to work, but I think it's something that I like. I mean I do like the feeling of waking up on my own, having this moment of like: "Oh, f**k, I hope I can do this today!" Because it makes you realise that you're working with material or you're working with a director or you're working with a cast and they're keeping you on your toes.
A while back there was this fad where a big star [would get] a producing credit and you'd ask around, and people were like, "No, they didn't produce, they just took the credit." I was flabbergasted. So when I started, people were weirded out by the fact that I was like, "How long is our prep? I'll come a week before that." They were like, "We're not shooting for six weeks."
My fans probably know what I had for breakfast that morning. And that's the cool part. And I respond to people, if they post on my blog, I'm like, "Oh, that's really cool you read that book, that fantasy series!" It's almost like they're my friends in a sense. There's less separation. They know me more as a human being with my flaws, versus some kind of actor on a pedestal.
I had a lot of fun working with Maureen, she was so sweet and so nice to me. We'd have fun joking around. Maureen and I both love to sing and we love it when we got to do it. I was so glad to have had the opportunity to work with her. Maureen is a beautiful person, not just on the outside, but on the inside as well. I will always have lots of fond memories working with her.
I went to this massive co-ed school for the first time when I was 16. Everyone there had been together since elementary school, and I found it quite difficult, especially when I'd never stepped into a classroom with boys. So I started looking out in the community for a social outlet. I started getting involved in student films and community theater. Acting began as a hobby.
I was a Harry Potter nerd. Pencils were wands. I was going to Hogwarts. The whole thing. You don't understand what a nerd I am. I mean, if they remade them, I'd still go. Like, I've seen all of [the originals], and that's always going to be Harry. That's always going to be Ron and Hermione. But if they did it again, I absolutely would go, because I want to see it all again.
I think sometimes it's sort of easier to be playing a role based on a real person because there's quite often a lot more information, you're not making it up, it's there in books, it's there in research form. But really the questions you ask about the character, and why people behave, and where they come, and how they've ended up in the places they've ended up are the same.
I want to live for my truth, my reality, what is important to me and what I’m passionate about. I love acting, and I love being able to tell a story, but working with another human being who is struggling with the same thing that I’ve struggled with, and guiding them towards hope and redemption - it’s you know it’s a triumph, it’s a story of the triumph of the human spirit.
People are complicated creatures. On the one hand, capable of great acts of charity, and on the other, capable of the most underhanded forms of betrayal. It's a constant battle that rages within all of us, between the better angels of our nature and the temptations of our inner demons. And sometimes, the only way to ward off the darkness is to shine the light of compassion.
Never drink diet soda. It shows you have no nerve. Only drink real colas, caffeine-packed energy drinks, or vitamin water. Hate champagne because that’s what everyone expects you to love. Energy drinks are the best party drinks. You never get tired, you never get a hangover, and you can make fun of all the loaded people who think they’re clever but are really acting stupid.
Theratre is not like like in film and TV, where you have to stop and go back and keep redoing the same three pages for two hours. You get to go through the whole 80 pages of the script, which is incredible. You get to keep acting on the feelings you had just moments before. You don't have to psych yourself up for the scene. You can just go off what you were already feeling.
People think pop is rock, and the lines are getting blurred. Now Rihanna's wearing f-ckin' leather jackets, and it's really annoying . . . (My style is) high-class hooker. I dress for myself. Clearly, it's provocative, but it makes me feel good. And if the only reason it makes someone uncomfortable is because I'm 17, then that person's a scumbag because it shouldn't matter.
Career is the stringing together of opportunities and jobs. Mix in public opinion and past regrets. Add a dash of future panic and a whole lot of financial uncertainty. Career is something that fools you into thinking you are in control and then takes pleasure in reminding you that you aren't. Career is the thing that will not fill you up and will never make you truly whole.
I have never been skinny. The thing is, I was in an industry where being athletic was not celebrated. I have friends who are supermodels, and I never had that body. I've never been asked to walk in a Versace show. I was doing the covers of the magazines while they were cruising the clothes down the runway, and then they'd bring me the clothes and I'd have to photograph them.
I think what matures us is time, not necessarily our physical bodies. So I think she can probably change as much as human would in the timespan of the show. However, I do think as a human you reach a point where there's a certain amount of humility and acceptance of life and its consequences when you see your own body change and age, and the pounds come or the wrinkles come.
As the years have gone on and you start to know your character better than some of the writers and directors do, you get a little bit more of a world in which you can say, "I think it would be really great, if this year, her fate wasn't determined by the boys," or that kind of thing. You have to pick your battles and make sure that you've earned the right to talk about that.
As adult women, we're better able to protect ourselves emotionally. We understand we don't need to spend time with people who don't make us feel good. We recognise that some people have bad energy and we know we don't want that in our lives. Instead, we choose to spend time with people who love us and treat us well and make us happy. There's no doubt that shows on your face.
I had been involved in animal welfare groups, but DDAL presented an opportunity to actually create and pass legislation aimed at issues which really matter to so many people. From local spaying and neutering ordinances, to legislation against puppy mills, to standards to prevent animals from being tested for the sake of a new cosmetic, we could - and did - make a difference.
You learned that it was easy frighteningly easy to get lost in someone else's life accommodating him and stop being yourself. You learned to be wary about falling in love. And you learned that someone who loved you could stop loving you for some dark reason and even though that was bruising you were more resilient than you knew. Eventually you would get over it more or less.
It was so soon after I'd had my son and I really wasn't planning on going back to work for a while. I will walk over hot coals to work with Bill Condon on anything, the experience that you have with him is just too good... I've certainly never worked with him before so the trio of Bill [Codon], Ian [McKellen], and Sherlock Holmes, and England: it was too much to say "no" to.
Over and over in the play my character says, "I'm thirty-two years old," as if that should explain everything that's wrong in her life. I don't know what it's like to be thirty-two, but I can imagine. I imagine she means she's stuck in an in-between time, she's at an age that isn't a milestone but more of a no-man's-land, an age where she's feeling like her hopes are fading.
We put so much pressure on ourselves as parents to be able to do everything, but children are very grateful and understanding. I always find that quality time, even if you just get a little bit, really has a deep impact. But you also need them to know that they can make mistakes, and if they do make a mistake it's OK for them to tell you and that they'll get a second chance.
There are many graphic artists who have interpreted The Ancient One as a Tibetan Buddhist Lama, we're kind of shifting that a bit. We're trying not to be fixed, we're trying not to be fixed to any one thing, any one gender, any one spiritual discipline, and any one race even; we're just trying to wing it beyond that. So it's a new gesture really, just another interpretation.
Each character I play I approach differently and separately. I think Marigold is a simpler character for a sweet little movie, and I'm excited to be part of it. In terms of Heroes it's been such an amazing journey on that show. I love working on it and at this point I know I'm coming to Asia and some of the other cast are going to Europe for the world tour to release the DVD.
You are playing a character obviously, and everything you are saying is filtered through that person. It is not you that is saying it. It is filtered through a character that doesn’t have your own set of values - so it is not really odd. Inevitably we help each other with a lot of line-learning. Plus there is a familiarity which is quite nice. We have done TV together before.
Self-checkout is negative because more and more retailers are losing the personal touch. People want to do business where people know their name and communicate with them. With a world full of email and more self-service we will begin to start seeking out the basics from retailers who create emotion. There is not emotion out of self-service and most people buy out of emotion.
Each of us seeks peace of mind, but we sometimes fear that it means giving up excitement and ecstasy. Peace sounds like contentment, which sounds like settling, letting the fire go out. Actually, peace of mind allows you to go more deeply into the world and consequently to experience more excitement and ecstasy. The fire burns brighter, fueled by awareness instead of anxiety.
Most of us who got into film industry in early 2000s weren't prepared for the constant vigilance that being a celebrity requires, and there's no school for learning how to handle it well or gracefully. It's a hard thing to figure out. A lot of people don't deal with it well because they're either too paranoid or they're doing things they probably shouldn't be doing in public.
There's obviously instances where I perceive sexism in my job. ... I think that the sort of sexism that I see has been one that's a little bit like a gentler form of sexism, but still a little bit debilitating, which is that when, as a producer and a writer, whether it was at The Office or [at The Mindy Project], if I make a decision, it'll still seem like it's up for debate.
Nichelle Nichols had decided leave the original Star Trek series after the first season. Fed up with racist harassment and limitation, culminating with her learning that studio executives were withholding her fan mail, she submitted her resignation. She withdrew it when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. convinced her that her role was too important a cultural breakthrough to leave.
Now, as I move through my fifties, I can be professional and domestic, creative and intellectual, patient and urgent. I have learned that we should never settle for someone else's definition of who we can be. Growing to this age, I realize, is kind of like feeling your voice deepen. It's still your voice, but it has more substance, and it sounds like it knows its own origins.
I don't have much to compare it to because I really didn't know much about theater. After I signed on, I started reading a lot of Sam Shepard plays just to brush up on my history and do some research. What's great is that Sam's been here and he's been in rehearsals with us. Sometimes you don't even notice him come in; he's just sitting there in the theater seats watching you.
When I came to faith, I thought I would have to stop being an actor, because it's all about artifice and manipulation. But we're living in a world where God doesn't really have an influence, unless it's fundamentalists, so I'll always be an outsider because of my faith. And when you think about it, faith and acting are all about stories, so the two are not mutually exclusive.
I hide my emotions mainly because you don't want somebody to know that you feel sorry for them, because they will feel worse, or because you don't want someone to know or see your fear. If someone like a sick kid or a burn victim sees your fear, they respond to how you respond. And if you show them it's terrible, they will get upset. It's something I've learned over the years.
Because I take very seriously the idea that I can make an impact in the world, I hold back my voice so I can make more of an impact when I do use it. A cause like One Billion Rising is something I want to scream about, and I want you to take that scream seriously because I don't fall out of nightclubs. I don't have photographers capture me spending untold amounts on a handbag.
Beneath the makeup & behind the smile I'm just the girl who wishes for the world. A wise girl kisses, but doesn't love. Listens but dosen't believe. And leaves before she is left. If you can make a girl laugh - you can make her do anything. It's often just enough to be with someone. I don't need to touch them. Not even talk. A feeling passes between you both. You're not alone.
[True Detective] is an intense show, even in terms of the dialogue - there's a little rhythm to it, in particular in his monologues. I think on those days, he [Woody Harrelson] really had to stay in the zone. Because there's a certain cadence in which that character speaks and talks about life, you know? But then there are other days that he was able to be a little more loose.
That was cool, getting to work with Ryan Gosling. I knew he was going to be a huge star after I saw him in that Showtime thing that he did when he was really young [The Believer]. I think the most fun thing about that was I'd never seen somebody that had so many questions about the specifics of everything: where you ate, how much you ate, how much you drank. He's very special.
The movie business was changing, I didn't want to turn 60 in the job. I picked 60 as an age where you are young enough to have a new life but not so young you can wait. And I had this incredible need: I had been so blessed in life and I wanted to give back. So I left Paramount with great joy, I have to say, and with great fondness for the memories I have in the movie business.
Suffering should not define you as a woman! And just because you’re a man it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t affect you! HELP HER to remove the taboos and the loneliness surrounding this disease; be understanding, show empathy, and don’t accuse her of being sensitive, delicate, or overly dramatic – this is a big opportunity for you guys to show that you care and to be a real man!
The answer to a lot of your life's questions is often in someone else's face. People's faces will tell you amazing things. Like if they are angry, or nauseous, or asleepTry to keep your mind open to possibilities and your mouth closed on matters that you don't know about. Limit your 'always' and your 'nevers.' Continue to share your heart with people even if it has been broken.
It's getting harder to make decisions to work for the sake of working. Like everybody, I'm trying to find things that are extremely challenging or mean something to me deeply. Sometimes something like The Tourist comes up and it's just fun, but it's not as easy to find projects that I have to do. I have to be home and I have to do other things, but I don't have to work as much.
I think it's a legend that Lars von Trier is such a tough person to work with. I really didn't experience any of that. Of course, he's difficult in the sense that what he asks for is difficult. For my part in Antichrist, I suffered a bit. But it was the part - it wasn't him. He wasn't cruel. On the contrary, he was very kind. You know what you're up for when you read the pitch.
Still, I wonder if more women artists, musicians and writers aren't household names because we don't have enough faith in our own pursuits to give ourselves the time we desperately need to be transformed by a creative vision. Maybe that glass ceiling isn't really made of glass at all, but of sticky little fingers, dishes piled in the sink, and mortgages that demand two incomes.
Without my women friends, I wouldn't know anything. They've been my teachers and my mothers. My mother was a wonderful person, but she didn't give me a lot of the stuff I needed to advance myself as an adult woman. I have a really strong group of girlfriends, and we share a lot with one another - the complications of raising children, marriages, personal and physical struggles.